


The Board Room

by hjea



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hjea/pseuds/hjea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned wonders why Robert has really brought him back to the company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Board Room

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ March 9, 2012 for the prompt: Game of Thrones! MODERN AU. Mwahaha! (Don't I have the best of friends?) Also known as that time I inadvertently ficced myself into a lot of Ned/Cersei feelings.

There was something distasteful about meeting like this in the King's Landing Room. Sure it was the largest, and perhaps it did have the best light for the afternoon, but in an office building of this size, which averaged about three board rooms per floor, there had to be better options. Ned couldn't help but remember how the old CEO Aerys had also seemed to favour this room--particularly when it came to outlining his many cut-throat liquidation schemes, or any of his particularly vicious sackings. Ned had thought Robert would run things differently now, but apparently not. He'd even managed to drag up Aerys's old board chair from storage for gods-knew what reason. A more ugly and ostentatious piece of office furniture had never been made, in Ned's opinion.

Ned sighed and pushed his own chair away from the table. He would have preferred not to stick around after yet another of these thoroughly unproductive meetings, but it seemed the thing to do. Everyone else was milling in the room, hushed and anxious and unsure, as if reluctant to be the first to leave. Robert meanwhile stared moodily into his scotch at the head of the table, ignoring all of Varys's attempts to whisper in his ear.

He looked around the room again and found Cersei standing against a window by herself, surveying the room in her own turn with an unreadable expression on her face. It... bothered Ned, although he couldn't say why. He would've liked to leave it alone, but his conscience reminded him that Robert had asked him to come back to the company specifically to keep an ear to the ground for any potential take-overs. The fact that Robert would never think to suspect his own wife was really just a moot point.

Ned walked toward Cersei, and leaned against the window beside her. If surprised, she didn’t show it, but merely tilted her own tumbler of 25-year-old towards him in acknowledgement. “You’re settling in, Ned?” Her tone was all politeness, but even he could hear the hint of suppressed frustration in her voice. He shrugged. “Well, it all comes back. I was---“ he paused, trying to choose his words, “---Surprised. At how much the deficit has grown. Of course the economy being what it is, it’s perhaps to be expected after all.”

Cersei snorted. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Ned, but never that you were taking to blatant lies. You and I both know that this has nothing to do with the economy. Robert is going to run this company into the ground because he just doesn’t care anymore. But he’s too scared to let go of the power and bow out gracefully.”

Ned blinked in surprise. He’d heard his own fair share of things about Cersei Lannister, and hadn’t ever expected _candor_ from this seemingly cold and calculating woman. He coughed, trying to cover up how much she had caught him off-guard, as Cersei continued to stare at him levelly, giving nothing away.

“Could you not funnel in some capital from Lion Corp.?" Ned asked finally. "It would be in both companies best interests, surely.” Cersei snorted at him again. “If you think I have any actual control over my father’s financial group than you’re dreaming, Mr. Stark. My father and Robert are too stuck in some endless game over the money that they both think I’m either too stupid or too uninterested in to understand.”

Her eyes were boring holes into Ned’s now, suddenly passionately fiery and alive while the rest of her remained still and composed. “The truth is that I could run this business far better than anyone else in this room—and certainly better than Robert, who swept in on a whim when he thought he saw an opening to prove himself, and now doesn’t know what to do with the mess he was left, other than to make it worse.” She took a breath. “But of course the glass ceiling hasn’t shattered so high as to allow even a woman like me any room at the top of Seven Kingdom Multi-National. I wouldn’t even be considered.”

She wasn’t wrong. Even Robert, who had become so paranoid and distrustful of everyone around him, had never given the slightest hint that he suspected the strength and depth of Cersei’s ambitions.

Ned coughed, stretched a tight smile across his face at Cersei’s still-piercing stare, and walked away. He couldn’t say what disturbed him more: the ease with which she had just unburdened all her scorn of Robert on Ned—purportedly Robert’s right-hand man and staunchest supporter—or the sympathy he suddenly felt struck with in the face of the woman’s bitterness and acceptance of her lot. Needless to say he was far more confused and bothered in the aftermath of the conversation than he had been before.

Why had Robert brought him back? Was it only so Ned too would have to witness the slow and inevitable decay of a company that had once meant so much to them both? Or was it to witness Robert’s own decay itself?

His mobile buzzed quietly against his leg, no doubt Cat leaving a message to ask if he’d be able to make it home from the city this weekend. Ned longed to go home. But he doubted he would make it back soon.


End file.
